EXCLUSIVE: Number of Rent Repayment Order cases rising every year

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Rent Repayment Orders (RROs) in England are rising each year as local authorities look to cause errant landlords maximum pain.

According to government figures, there were just 73 RROs made in 2018, rising to 282 in 2019 and 349 in 2020. So far this year there have been 202 orders made – no doubt impacted by hold-ups in the court system.

The figures were easy to access, despite the Ministry of Justice rejecting LandlordZONE’s Freedom of Information request on the subject; civil servants claimed that finding out the information would be too time-consuming and expensive.

First introduced in 2004, tenants could originally only take action once their landlord had been convicted of a criminal offence, however since 2016, they’ve been able to apply directly to a First Tier Property Tribunal for a RRO without the need of a prior conviction.

Both tenants and councils can seek to have up to 12 months of rent, Housing Benefit, or Universal Credit repaid – usually in addition to a fine or civil penalty.

LandlordZONE regularly covers tribunal cases, most commonly because a landlord has failed to licence an HMO, such as landlord Karen Merricks who was recently handed a whopping £47,000 bill in Tower Hamlets. Like hers, landlords of large HMOs are particularly at risk of large fines, as a RRO consists of a year’s worth of rent for each tenant.

London surge

There’s been a huge 532% increase in orders in London between May and July, according to geospatial technology firm Kamma, which reports that the largest single fines ever recorded are £100,000 for a landlord and £167,000 for a letting agent.

Gavin Dick, local authority policy officer at the National Residential Landlords Association, says the pandemic has focused local authorities’ attention on RROs, which are now a big part of their armoury.

He tells LandlordZONE: “Both tenants and local authorities are more aware of them, and once one authority uses them, others see this and do the same. They want to hit landlords – those who don’t have a licence or haven’t properly collected a deposit – with as much as possible and I’m sure we’ll see them used even more in the future.”

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – EXCLUSIVE: Number of Rent Repayment Order cases rising every year | LandlordZONE.

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A national rogue tenant database would be ‘open to abuse’ says industry expert

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A national rogue tenant register to combat the issue of renters trashing properties and leaving landlords out of pocket could be open to abuse, a leading expert has warned.

Sean Hooker, head of redress at the Property Redress Scheme, says there would be issues over how any potential register could be regulated and controlled, while the information on it would need to be verified.

“It shouldn’t be a blacklist of tenants that could be prejudiced against them – they would need to be on there for a legitimate reason and not because a landlord didn’t like them asking for repairs,” he tells LandlordZONE.

Many landlords responded to LandlordZONE’s story about Vic and Jane Shoulders who face a huge bill after a rogue tenant family left behind a trail of destruction, 18 months after moving in, in the Toothill suburb of Swindon.

Serious offendors

One said that such a national register would be useful, adding: “I could start it off with at least 20 names of serious offenders who have abused my property and owed thousands in rent arrears. Black-listing these offenders would soon prevent other landlords from taking these thieves on in future.”

Another added that it might make tenants think there were serious consequences to abusing landlords and their properties, with the consequence that they would find it very difficult to find accommodation in a decent landlord’s property again.

There are plenty of landlord review websites such as marksoutoftenancy.com and rateyourlandlord.org.uk where tenants can be brutally honest about property owners.

Hooker says the issue of people posting unsubstantiated ratings on these would apply to any tenant equivalent and adds that landlords can protect themselves in other ways.

“It’s amazing how many landlords don’t do robust referencing and don’t go through rigorous due diligence. Doing that right – not only checking credit history but with previous landlords and employers – is how you protect yourself.”

Read more: How do we get rid of rogue tenants?

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – A national rogue tenant database would be ‘open to abuse’ says industry expert | LandlordZONE.

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£8.6 billion for affordable housing

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Thousands of people will be helped onto the housing ladder as funding worth £8.6 billion is allocated across the country. Part of the largest single investment in affordable housing in a decade, the Affordable Homes Programme funding will deliver around 119,000 homes

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Revenge is sweet, but are you prepared for the consequences

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A case in point is the story this week of a commercial landlord shop owner in the Edgware Road, West London, who it would appear, hired two chaps to go along to the shop with sledge hammers and smash-in all the front windows.

The commotion caused by the raid, in broad daylight, alarmed nearby shoppers and must have frightened the life out of the lady shop tenant who ran out screaming onto the pavement.

As it happened two men were filmed smashing the shop windows before the two were arrested by a swarm of batten waving police officers, as the stunned shopper crowd watched on.

And there’s no shortage of stories in the press of residential landlords taking revenge on their tenants, cutting off services, throwing their possessions out on the street, changing locks, hounding them out of their homes.

Sometimes the boot’s on the other foot. Tenants also take revenge. According to one recent press story a tenant from hell in Andover, Hampshire, filled a home with 8,000 beer cans and full of waste after telling the landlord that he had left “a bit of a mess”.

One landlord of my acquaintance contracted a life-long infection after cleaning up the mess left in one of his properties, a trashed house with dog and cat excrement strewn all over the carpets and floors.

Clearing up the stomach-churning mess left by some tenants can be not only highly unpleasant, it’s extremely dangerous as my friend discovered. The task is best left to specialist cleaners.

So what are the consequences?

Most acts of revenge carried out by landlords are criminal acts. The protection from Eviction Act 1977 protects residential tenants from harassment and illegal eviction, making the offence a criminal matter, as is an act of criminal damage, such as the shop window smashing.

If you want to avoid getting a criminal record don’t even think about taking the law into your own hands. I know from personal experience how frustrating it can be when tenants don’t pay their rent or cause property damage and seem to be getting away with it.

Right now, in the middle of a pandemic, sensible landlords have had to be accommodating to their tenants, helping them when they see hardship and taking the view that a tenant who is paying what they can is better than no tenant at all – some commercial premises are virtually impossible to re-let at this time.

Tenants taking advantage

Of course, some tenants are taking advantage of the government’s protection measures, such as the ban on evictions for commercial tenants until next March 2022, but the courts are still available for rent arrears claims and landlords must be prepared to go down the proper legal route if their tenants really are taking the proverbial!

In my experience of letting both residential and commercial properties for more than 40 years, most tenants are anxious to pay their rent and also look after the premises. When tenants get themselves into difficulties however, as is more likely now during a pandemic, some degree of leniency and negotiation is called for, but that can only go so far.

Some landlords are not in a financial position themselves to forgo rent payments altogether, so frustrating as it may seem, if tenants are taking advantage, resorting to property damage or violence is not the answer.

Temporary Government restrictions

The temporary restrictions introduced by the Government to help tenants ride out the Covid pandemic limit the options landlords can take, but there are things they can still do when arrears are building up.

A couple of recent cases have shown that while the use of CRAR, commercial tenancy forfeiture or company winding up petitions are currently either restricted or prohibited under Covid rules, there is no ban on issuing debt recovery proceedings for longer term rent arrears.

There is also no ban on what is known as the court summary judgment procedure in respect of commercial rent arrears claims, that’s providing the money is properly owed, i.e., where the tenant can’t put up a valid defence or show why the claim should go to trial. A summary judgment considerably reduces the wait time for your claim to be dealt with and it means you can minimise a build-up of arrears quickly.

Residential tenants are still obliged to continue to pay their rent and abide by all other terms of their tenancy agreement to the best of their ability. Where there is financial difficulty landlords are often accommodating and the government has made a strong package of financial support available to tenants, but where they can pay the rent they are expected to do so as normal.

If you are experiencing the frustration of a tenant with growing long-term rent arrears, or otherwise breaching their contract terms, especially during this time of Covid, don’t be tempted to take the law into your own hands, it’s simply not worth it. There are remedies available and as things get back to normal it will become easier again to deal with delinquent tenants.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Revenge is sweet, but are you prepared for the consequences | LandlordZONE.

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Landlord Haters wanted Pet deposits banned – Now they wish to reverse that decision

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This shows how backwards and imbecilic this Government, Generation rent and Shelter are. They called for the banning of an extra £100 to £200 deposit etc. for tenants with pets, so the government banned Landlords from charging an extra deposit for pets.

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New Chief Economist and MPC member for the Bank of England

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The Bank of England has appointed Huw Pill as Chief Economist, Executive Director for Monetary Analysis and a member of the Monetary Policy Committee. Huw joins the Bank of England from Harvard Business School, where he has been senior lecturer since 2018.

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‘Landlords who fight licensing schemes together can make a difference’

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Proactive and engaged landlords make the best case against new licensing schemes, says South East landlord association iHowz.

It is helping local landlords in Ealing fight plans for increased selective licensing and additional licensing in the borough and is waiting to see if its involvement will help to sway the council.

CEO Peter Littlewood (pictured) says it takes a core of local landlords or agents to start taking up a cause. “It makes a big difference when someone local writes to councillors – and we have that in Ealing,” he tells LandlordZONE.

“Local landlords rallied round but we intentionally didn’t give them a template to use as it’s better if they write in their own words, and as a result, some have written amazing, detailed letters.”

Westminster is another London authority with plans to introduce a discretionary licensing scheme for all HMOs, however Littlewood says: “We’re a small organisation and can’t fight them all, we can only fight the ones where there’s sufficient local opinion.”

Property passports

He adds: “It would be much better for landlords to have a ‘virtual wallet’ or property passport where they could have their EPC report and a unique reference number – then you wouldn’t need licensing schemes.”

The landlord group, which covers a large area, from Bournemouth, across to Essex and up to High Wycombe, is also focusing its attention on the issue of energy and the new EPC minimum standard.

It believes the proposal that new tenancies must have an energy rating of at least C by 2025 won’t give all landlords enough time to make the necessary improvements if they don’t have a long enough void period.

It is urging the government to give landlords more practical advice about making improvements, using digital EPCs with links to information on available grants.

iHowz is holding its first physical meeting in 18 months in London later this month and hopes to hold meetings in Brighton and Southampton soon.

Read more about Ealing and local landlords.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – ‘Landlords who fight licensing schemes together can make a difference’ | LandlordZONE.

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Did you? Half of landlords lost up to £10,000 during Covid, says new research

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Many landlords have felt an acute lack of support in the last 18 months and reckon more should be done to give them the same protection as tenants, finds a new survey from Simply Business.

Its new report – The Impact of Covid-19 on UK Landlords – finds that just 7% took advantage of a mortgage payment holiday, many had to dip into their own personal savings to make up for the loss in rental income, while others struggled to deal with difficult tenants. It says 43% feel that landlords should have been compensated by the government for losses in rental income.

It quizzed 560 landlords, over half of whom (51%) have lost money due to Covid-19, most commonly because their tenants couldn’t pay the rent (27%). Another 8% of landlords couldn’t find suitable new tenants during the pandemic, which caused them to lose out on rental income.

Rent reductions

The report reveals how 14% of landlords gave rent reductions and 28% arranged a repayment plan, however 44% say their tenants didn’t stick to the schedule. The insurance provider says more than a third of landlords expect it to take at least 12 months to recoup losses.

Of the landlords who lost income, 47% were down between £2,001 and £10,000, while 14% lost more than £10,000. Despite this, landlords largely remain resilient, according to Simply Business, as 59% still think property is a worthwhile investment, while almost a third are optimistic about their future letting property.

However, CEO Alan Thomas (pictured) says it comes as no surprise that a fifth of landlords are planning to sell property as a direct result of Covid.

“Contributing over £16 billion annually in pre-tax spending, an exodus of smaller landlords from the buy-to-let market could have a devastating impact on the UK economy,” he adds.

Read the report.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – Did you? Half of landlords lost up to £10,000 during Covid, says new research | LandlordZONE.

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New Tenants’ Rights Minister appoint by the SNP

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First Minister for Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has appointed the Green  MSP for Glasgow. Patrick Harvie, as the Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights Minister. Harvie will lead on delivering a new deal for tenants, and ensuring building standards are fit for purpose.

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‘LOST THOUSANDS’: One example of why UK needs a rogue tenant register

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A landlord couple face a huge bill after a rogue tenant family left behind a trail of destruction, 18 months after moving in.

Sixty-something landlords Vic and Jane Shoulders had hoped to eventually move into the property in the Toothill suburb of Swindon and use it as their retirement home but the damage to the property is so great that their plans are now on hold.

They also told local media that the tenant family had only paid their first months’ rent before falling into arrears and that it took until mid-August to evict them due to the bailiff ban and other measures introduced during the pandemic.

As LandlordZONE made clear last week, many landlords with experiences similar to the Shoulders feel that while penalties are severe for rogue landlords, criminal tenants like this can hop from property to property wreaking havoc with few legal or financial repercussions.

Once their tenants were evicted, the Shoulders were horrified to find that ivy was growing inside a bathroom, a leak had been left to rot the entire kitchen ceiling, toys were found in a bedroom with faeces inside them and unopened bags of shopping were left strewn across the property.

Takeaway boxes were in every room and so far the Shoulders have removed 200 bags of rubbish, with another 100 expected.

The property will now have to be gutted and renovated which, along with the 18 months’ lost rent, will mean a bill running into ‘thousands’, the couple claim.

“It was a nice house. Now I just want to get a match and burn the whole thing down,” Jane told the Swindon Advertiser. “How can someone have lived like this?”.

Pic credit: Vic and Jane Shoulders.

©1999 – Present | Parkmatic Publications Ltd. All rights reserved | LandlordZONE® – ‘LOST THOUSANDS’: One example of why UK needs a rogue tenant register | LandlordZONE.

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